President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States “will retaliate” for the murder of three Americans in Syria, which he described as an “ISIS attack.”
“We mourn the loss of three Great American Patriots in Syria, two soldiers, and one Civilian Interpreter. Likewise, we pray for the three injured soldiers who, it has just been confirmed, are doing well,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Saturday afternoon.
“This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” he said.
“The President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is extremely angry and disturbed by this attack. There will be very serious retaliation,” he warned.
The attack on Saturday took place near Palmyra, an ancient city and UNESCO World Heritage Site that was heavily damaged during the long Syrian Civil War and the battle against the Islamic State. It was the first lethal attack on American forces in Syria since 2019, and the first attack on U.S. forces since dictator Bashar Assad was overthrown in December 2024.
Palmyra was used as a stronghold by the forces of dictator Bashar Assad from 2013 through 2015, when it was overrun and captured by the barbaric ISIS. Among the first things ISIS did after capturing Palmyra were murder its director of antiquities, ransack its tombs, and blow up its historic architecture, because ISIS theology held that the city’s ancient treasures were idolatrous insults to Islam.
According to a statement from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), “[T]wo U.S. service members and one U.S. civilian were killed, and three service members were injured, as a result of an ambush by a lone ISIS gunman” in Palmyra on Saturday. The gunman was “engaged and killed.”
“The attack occurred as the soldiers were conducting a key leader engagement. Their mission was in support of on-going counter-ISIS / counter-terrorism operations in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said.
“The savage who perpetrated this attack was killed by partner forces,” added Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
Syrian officials said the gunman was a rogue member of the Syrian security forces who was already “under investigation” for holding “extremist ideas.”
There was some confusion about how high-ranking the attacker was, but the Syrian Interior Ministry insisted he was not a member of the military “leadership” nor an “assistant to the commanders” in Palmyra.
“There were prior warnings from the internal security command to allied forces in the desert region. The international coalition forces did not take the Syrian warnings of a possible ISIS infiltration into consideration,” Interior Ministry spokesman Anwar al-Baba said in a state television interview.
Al-Baba told CBS News on Monday the attacker’s name was Tarek Satouf al-Hamd, and he was working inside a local military base even though he had been identified as a security risk with “extremist Islamist ideas,” and the government had “decided to fire him.”
Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted an unnamed Syrian security official who said that eleven members of the general security forces were “arrested and brought in for questioning after the attack.”
According to this source, the gunman had been a member of the Syrian security forces for “more than ten months,” and had been “posted to several cities before being transferred to Palmyra.”
An official with the Syrian Defense Ministry told AFP that the gunman struck while a joint Syrian-American delegation was headed to an airbase after touring Palmyra. Another official said the attack occurred while Syrian and American officers were meeting at, or near, the airbase.
On Monday, the U.S. Army identified the two American soldiers killed in Palmyra as Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa. Both were members of the Iowa National Guard.
“Sgt. Howard and Sgt. Torres-Tovar served our state and nation with honor, and in doing so, gave the ultimate sacrifice. We are grateful for their service and deeply mourn their loss,” Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said in a statement on Monday.
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